Society

Saturday

The Spectator

Waste of the day

Having been reprimanded by the broadcasting regulator Ofcom for a clutch of on-air errors, this report is just the most recent evidence that the Corporation is now form-filling when it should be programme-making. At times it is as if the viewers are receiving a service that incorporates all that is undesirable: a costly administration unable to stop the broadcasting of abuse but successfully stifling genuine creativity. Programme-makers have already protested: Stephen Poliakoff has stated that the BBC is suffering a ‘crisis of confidence’, presided over by a clutch of ‘Kafkaesque committees’. Their dramatists have even been sent to learn about ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’. Such absurdity can only be stemmed by

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 21 November 2009

A new Telegraph survey on ‘dating’ (the romantic rather than temporal kind), reveals that 91 per cent of women and 86 per cent of men would not marry someone ‘who had everything you looked for in a partner, but whom you were not in love with’. But what, an ancient would ask, has marriage to do with love? Greek and Roman upper-class males — for they composed the literature, and it is their views of the matter that we have — did not regard love as a crucial component of marriage. To put it crudely, marriage was primarily business: the production of legitimate heirs, preferably male ones, to continue the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The White House pushes the Afghan decision down the road again

There will be no decision from the White House on Afghan strategy this coming week. The Obama administration has told Reuters that the decision will not come until after the Thanksgiving weekend. This delay in making the decision is getting quite absurd. When the election process was still going on, there was an argument that holding back the decision on how many troops to send gave the Americans leverage over Karzai. But now that Karzai has been sworn in for another term this argument no longer holds. Indeed, the delay appears to be making the situation worse. Note this report from Tom Ricks on a speech last week by David

James Forsyth James Forsyth

An important member of the class of 2010

Dominic Raab, who has just been selected for the safe Tory seat of Esher and Walton, will be a formidable addition to the Tory benches. Raab is a lawyer who currently serves as chief of staff to Dominic Grieve, the shadow Justice Secretary. I don’t agree with all of Raab’s views, but he will be a significant player in the debate that the party will have to have once it is in power about where the balance should be struck between civil liberties and anti-terrorist measures. One interesting thing to watch after the next election is how many of the 2010 intake are offered ministerial jobs straight away. This will

Martin Bright

Downing Street is now the last refuge of the electorally damned

Where does Gordon Brown find solace in these darkest of times? In Downing Street, a rather desperate numbers game is being played. It starts with an assumption that the Labour vote has stabilised at around 28 per cent. This is rounded up to 30 per cent, and is forecast to sneak up to 32 at the turn of the year — because the race tends to narrow as polling day approaches. Then, with the coming of spring, the flimsiness of the Cameron project will finally become clear to the British people. The legendary Brown street-fighting election machine will swing into action. With one last push, and if the weather is good

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Say you’re sorry — but never apologise for anything you’ve actually done

Rod Liddle says that Gordon Brown’s contrition about the British children tragically deported to Australia is a very Noughties phenomenon — the perfectly pointless non-apology I never knew it was Gordon Brown who sent all those kids off to Australia, packed them off and waved goodbye from the quayside, and now feels terribly bad about the whole thing. This deportation scheme, which ran from about 1920 to 1967, was designed to give British children from underprivileged backgrounds a new life in the former colony, which considered itself to be short of white folks, any white folks; too often, though, the children were torn from the comfort and familiarity of their

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Religion is like a jigsaw: it makes a picture out of puzzling chaos

It hardly struck me, as I set out for a couple of days in Somerset, that they would lead me to Bridport in Dorset, thence to Dame Margaret Drabble, to the history of the jigsaw puzzle, and finally to some melancholy reflections on the meaning of life. But of such apparently random pieces are jigsaws made, and sometimes they do make a picture. We’d seen a day of hurricane-force gales along the south coast last Saturday, when our Somerset hosts remarked that they’d bought tickets for a talk by Margaret Drabble at the Bridport Literary Festival early that evening, and were planning to drive over to the town before supper

Edie Lush

After Katrina: houses are still empty, but the Big Easy weathers the latest storm

Tourists in New Orleans’ French Quarter and Garden District would be hard pressed to see Hurricane Katrina damage if they didn’t go looking for it. On a recent visit to attend a wedding between a Glaswegian brewer and a Louisiana law professor, I ate gumbo, swayed to jazz and paraded behind a brass band between the ceremony and the reception. Not so different from a wedding I attended eight years ago in the same town. But you don’t have to venture far to see the lasting impact of the storm. Four years after Katrina flooded most of New Orleans, killed 1,464 people and caused billions of dollars in damage, about

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 21 November 2009

In Competition No. 2622 you were invited to submit a rhymed curse penned by a motorist on a cyclist, a cyclist on a pedestrian or a pedestrian on either. Reading the entry brought to mind a question once posed by Matthew Parris: ‘Does cycling turn you into an insolent jerk?’ ‘You bet it does!’ came the semi-unanimous chorus. A bracing stream of vitriol was directed mostly at cyclists, especially those who wear Lycra, though I no doubt let motorists off lightly by not giving the cycling brigade the opportunity to respond in kind to their fellow road-users. While Brian Murdoch, Basil Ransome-Davies, Paul Griffin and Martin Elster were unlucky losers,

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man | 21 November 2009

Most debate about modern architecture revolves around aesthetics. This misses the point. I quite like the way many modern buildings look — what I hate is the way they work. Say what you like about traditional architecture, no one has ever approached the portico of the British Museum and asked, ‘Any idea where the entrance might be?’ By contrast, until recently (when a design team installed some intelligent signage), you could circle the Barbican for hours and still have no idea how to get in. Once inside, you were faced by a baffling array of stairways all heading in random directions. One requirement of good public architecture — like good

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The XI of the Decade

It’s that time of year and that time of the decade. So, what’s the best XI of the last ten years? In some ways it is a disappointingly easy selection. But here it is anyway: 1. G Smith 2. V Sehwag 3. R Ponting 4. S Tendulkar 5. B Lara 6. A Gilchrist* (Wkt) 7. S Pollock 8. S Warne (Capt) 9. J Gillespie 10. M Muralitharan 11. G McGrath Criteria: Anyone who retired before 2006 is ineligible. Lara, Tendulkar and Warne etc could also, of course, be in a team of the 1990s. As you can see – and as you know – there’s been a severe shortage of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

There is more shopping in three streets in London than in Birmingham and Manchester combined

Prospect magazine’s In Fact column always contains some thought provoking numbers. This month, I was particularly struck by this statistic: “The annual retail spend of Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street is £5.5bn—more than Manchester and Birmingham.” On one level, this is testament to the importance of clusters. But it is also a sign of just how dominant in the UK London is; something that is not particularly healthy for the country as a whole.   

David Blackburn

There are moral absolutes: aspects of Sharia are barbaric

Credit where credit’s due, Peter Tatchell wrote an article for the Guardian describing Sharia law as being “especially oppressive”. He says: ‘Its interpretations stipulate the execution of Muslims who commit adultery, renounce their faith (apostates) or have same-sex relationships. Sharia methods of execution, such as stoning, are particularly brutal and cruel – witness the stoning to death this week in Somalia of a 20-year-old woman divorcee who was accused of adultery. This is the fourth stoning of an adulterer in Somalia in the last year. Somalia is an extreme example of the Sharia oppression that exists in large parts of the Muslim world. As ever, Muslim women are often the

The Spectator

The week that was | 20 November 2009

Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson congratulates Michael Heath, and introduces Britain’s AWOL ally. James Forsyth praises Chris Grayling’s commitment to elected police commissioners, and finds an example of corruption that is shocking even by the standards of the Karzai government. Peter Hoskin says that Brown has misjudged the Afghan waiting game, and sees Ed Balls dump Gordon Brown into another lose lose situation. David Blackburn argues that Gordon Brown has been hoist by his own petard, and challenges the liberal centre to engage with the BNP. Mark Bathgate explains just quite how inexperienced this government is at economic management. Lloyd

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Paul Clarke Update II

The national newspapers may not be terribly interested in the Paul Clarke case but, happily, legal blogger Jack of Kent is. He’s produced a detailed account of the case, and the law, that I highly recommend. Mr Clarke may not be the ideal poster boy for liberty but it’s equally clear that this is of little to no import. What we have here, as Jack of Kent makes clear, is a case that makes a nonsense of a) strict liability offences, b) manadatory minimums, c) the police and d) the CPS. It’s possible that e) the judiciary and f) the jury could also be added to this list. Mr Clarke

Peter Hoskin

The problem with Brown’s latest Big Idea

There’s some very readable stuff in this week’s Economist (including a leader which outlines what Brown’s government should – but almost certainly won’t – do with its “last months in power”).  But if you read only one article from it, make sure it’s the Bagehot column and its dissection of Brown’s latest Big Idea: public service guarantees.   These are the pledges-turned-legal entitlements which popped up throughout the Queen’s Speech – such as the “guarantee” that patients will have hospital treatment within 18 weeks of being referred by a GP.  As Bagehot points out, it’s a problematic approach: ‘To be worth the manifesto paper they will be printed on, public-service

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The EU plumps for obscure and even more obscure as its first president and foreign minister 

You can say this for the European Union, it never misses a chance to disappoint. The first EU president is a Belgium Prime Minister who is obscure even by Belgium standards and its first foreign minister is a Brit who would be treated as a joke if they had been made Foreign Secretary.    From a British political point of view, Brown will be able to take credit for getting the foreign minister post for a Brit. But the price he has had to pay for this is accepting a federalist who believes in EU wide taxes as president.    Thinking from a Tory perspective, Van Rompuy is both an

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Letting his opinions be known

Today’s Evening Standard features an interview with Bernice McCabe, co-director of the Prince’s Teaching Institute. McCabe tells the paper that: “He [the Prince of Wales] is very passionate about the fact that children need a good grasp of literature and that all children need to understand the history of our country,” she said. “He is passionate that these subjects should remain there in the curriculum.” I happen to agree with the Prince of Wales on this point, but it is completely unacceptable that someone is speaking for him on what is a political issue. The monarchy survives in this country on the basis that it doesn’t express political opinions in

Alex Massie Alex Massie

La Main du Match

Photo: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images If there were a World Cup for Being Sanctimonious, Ireland would qualify every time. So, mind you, might Scotland. The aftermath of last night’s match in Paris has been predictably entertaining. One refereeing blunder (though it’s quite pssible the referee was unsighted and so did not, in fact, “bottle” the decision) has provided ample opportunity for cant and humbug. Thus, the Irish demand that the match be replayed. Good idea! Let’s have another go at the 1966 World Cup Final while we’re at it! FAI President John Delaney complains: “There’s a team that should be in the World Cup today and that’s us. We should be